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Provincial intensification efforts now a "patchwork"

Some municipalities still not meeting Ontario goals for building up instead of out, report finds

The Oak Ridges Moraine is a protected green belt, much of it running just north of Toronto and well within the GTA. Brian Millage walks along the path in Secord forest. (Rick Madonik / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

Provincial growth policies aimed at curbing urban sprawl and boosting intensification have been so compromised, much of the 1,000 square kilometres of land that was at risk of low-density development almost a decade ago remains just as endangered today, says a report by the non-profit Neptis Foundation.

The province’s Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe has become an inconsistent “patchwork,” largely because the government has granted so many exemptions and didn’t set penalties for municipalities failing to meet intensification targets, says the 128-page report by the non-profit think-tank on urban planning issues.

The result is that only two cities in the Greater Golden Horseshoe — the City of Toronto and Waterloo — are exceeding what were meant to be minimum standards for building up, instead of out, and easing demand for costly new roads, sewers, transit and other infrastructure, says the report.

In fact, most municipalities are treating the requirements — that 40 per cent of all new residential development per year be located in built-up areas, and every hectare of new “greenfield” development accommodate 50 people and jobs — as if they are maximum targets, it notes.

That, on top of a lack of clear direction from the province, has resulted in crippling intensification battles before the Ontario Municipal Board and left the plan, implemented in 2006, “under pressure and behind schedule,” says Neptis researcher Rian Allen.

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He, along with fellow researcher Philippa Campsie, spent 1½ years studying the planned rate of intensification in some 110 cities, towns and villages from roughly Waterloo and Brantford, to the GTA and east to Peterborough on behalf of Neptis.

“Little has changed as far as land consumption goes since the government carried out its original studies for the Growth Plan,” and there is no evidence that developers are running out of land to build, it says.

In fact, while the plan was also aimed at preserving agricultural and rural land, more than half the municipalities surveyed in the Outer Ring around the GTA greenbelt have actually lowered their targets below those set by the growth plan.

Back in 2004, the province warned that it no longer made economic, social or environmental sense to continue the unbridled, low-rise suburban sprawl that had characterized growth in the GTA in the 1980s and 1990s.

Under Places to Grow, 25 urban growth nodes were created to concentrate higher density building around transportation corridors and new subway lines and some, in fast-growing suburban communities such as Vaughan and Markham, are coming along nicely, notes Allen.

But in other areas, such as Halton region where the cities of Oakville and Burlington already have transportation and other infrastructure that could accommodate denser growth, some intensification targets aren’t being met, he found.

Instead, the bulk of new land the region has approved for development is around Milton where new roads, transit and other costly services have to be built, which appears to be contrary to the plan, says Allen.

Last month Ontario municipal affairs and housing minister Linda Jeffrey announced a series of consultations aimed at improving the land use and development approval process in the province.

The umbrella group for the province’s development industry has also raised concerns about how Places to Grow is being implemented, but its concerns — spelled out in a recent full-page ad in the Star — focus mainly on delays in approvals and outdated municipal official plans that, in too many cases, don’t reflect the objectives of the plan and are adding to delays and complications in getting developments approved.

Officials with the Building Industry and Land Development association had yet to read the Neptis report or were unavailable for comment Tuesday.

Marcy Burchfield, director of research for Neptis, said the report has been sent to the province. She’s hoping its findings will encourage a discussion about the progress so far, in advance of the 10-year review of Places to Grow, due in 2016.

“There needs to be systemic change. It’s not enough to just set policies,” stresses Allen. “The plan was intended to create consistency across the region. We haven’t got that. We’ve got a patchwork instead.”

Allen was surprised to discover that even the boom town, oil-rich city of Calgary now has more ambitious intensification standards for easing costly sprawl — and dependence on the car — than here in southern Ontario.

That city now requires that all new development accommodate 60 people and jobs per hectare.

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